Display issues with WinXP

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I gotta friend with this problem. I don't think its hardware problem. I'm gonna get more info from her about the AIM message when she's online. Offand any ideas?

"I'm having some serious problems of late. For one thing, my windows won't maximize. They think they are maximized, but in reality theres a gap at the top of my window that's about 1" and I can see my desktop through it. I can't figure out how to get it where it should be.

Also I noticed that when I tried to turn on my AIM chat client that my monitor went blank except for a message saying ... oh man I can't remember what it said ... something like "can't find (something) H:"numbers" V:"numbers".

Also I've noticed the brightness of my screen is waaaay off. I tried to watch an episode of Lost that I downloaded and I couldn't see anything that happened in the dark. This is distressing to me. ha!

Any ideas what's wrong? I don't want to buy both a monitor and a video card ... if I could isolate the problem I'd be happy."

[GaryRouth]

Seems like her problem is fairly recent, and possibly a minor mixup = why not advise her to try a System Restore to a restore point from just prior to her display settings going askew? If it works it should only take a few minutes. If she installed any software in the meantime, she may want to uninstall/reinstall it. If things go wrong again as soon as the new software is reinstalled, that's a pretty strong smokin' gun.

To make sure things didn't go wrong because of spyware/viruses hanging about, also advise her to run full system "thorough" scans for both.

If she seems savvy enough, you might have her check in on Device Manager when booted into Safe Mode - to see if the monitor, video card, etc all are listed correctly, and to see if any devices are "flagged" with either yellow exclamation points or red Xs (which would point to driver problems = hopefully the system restore will put things back OK).

Best of luck
. . . Gary

[P.S. ... the points she mentions about the H and V values are probably the Horizontal and Vertical refresh rates. Such rates should be detectable with Plug & Play or a correct-match .inf file for the monitor - so something might be up in that area, which the system restore might fix]

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Thanks for the info Gary, I'll pass it along. But get this. The maximize problem will only happen with Internet Explorer. but nothing else. ANy ideas?

[bailey]

kinda sounds like she got something downloaded that she did not expect.
virus scan might let her know what.

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Originally Posted by bailey kinda sounds like she got something downloaded that she did not expect. virus scan might let her know what.

Cool baily that tip worked! She booted into safemode and ran all her antivirus and spyware killers and its fine now. Thanks!